Holding on to Summer

Oh, Summer! Why do you leave me?

I love summer. I love the long days, the crisp Colorado nights, the barbeques, the vacations, and especially all of the outdoor activities our beautiful Rocky Mountains have to offer. Unfortunately, our ridiculous schedule of weddings, anniversaries, and tons of homework meant that our summer was over before I could even begin to enjoy it. But I'm not willing to let go just yet. With record-high temperatures this September, we actually took more hikes than we did in the months of June, July, and August combined. And I love enjoying every last opportunity for summer fun.

Our month of end-of-season hikes began with a nice walk around the Matthews/Winters Open Space in Jefferson County. My dad came along, and we got some nice views of the city from the foothills.

Starting out.

The trail. Foothills.

Matt and Dad, enjoying the hot weather.

Red Rocks formations on the south end of the hike.

The trail took us past the old townsite of Mt. Vernon. This is the overgrown cemetery from the town.

The next weekend, we were off again. This time, our destination was Elk Meadow Park near Evergreen.

A bird in a tree.

Walking.

We took this hike around the time that parts of Colorado were suffering from wildfires. I thought this sign was sadly appropriate.

A barn in a meadow. This part of the hike was a little boring.

A meadow and mountains (well... mini mountains).

A prettier part of the trail. The afternoon sun was pretty.

While the hikes we took at the beginning of the month were pretty easy and didn't take a lot of time, it was just nice to get outside for a bit. I'm not ready to stop hiking for the season!

Matt's New Obsession

Last winter, Matt decided that he LOVED skiing. While I was falling down again and again, Matt was racing down runs and having a blast. I'm so glad that he's done so well and enjoyed it so much... even if his constant excitement gets a little... wearing.

Even though the weather in Colorado is still extremely warm and we're hiking more now than we did all summer, Matt can't stop thinking about skiing in another month or so. In fact, he's been talking about skiing since about June! During Matt's business trip to Breckenridge last week, we received the first snow on the peaks. When Matt saw the dusting on the distant mountains, he became giddy. He posted the following picture on facebook:


With the following caption:

Ahh... look at the pretty aspens. But wait... what's that up there? SNOW!!!! (I'm getting excited for ski season in case you can't tell.)

I'm pretty sure he's past excitement at this point, and at full obsession.

But that's ok. I'm pretty excited, too. In preparation for the upcoming ski season, we had some shopping to do. A couple of weeks ago we went to the big ski and snowboard events that retail stores have to get rid of last season's equipment. Our first stop: SKIREX at Colorado Ski and Golf.

Look! A big dinosaur on the roof!

Our first expensive purchase was our season passes to five different Vail Resorts.

Hooray!

Then it was time to try on ski boots. With a very helpful salesman, we tried on a bunch of boots until we found the perfect fit.

Practicing my ski position.

Matt, playing with his boots after we got them home.

Pretty, pretty boots.

Ski boots work a little better with skis, so we checked out some places that sell them used. After we got them, Matt made a nifty rack for them to hang on in the basement.

Mine are the short ones, in case you were wondering.

So now we're pretty set for ski season! While I don't have quite the enthusiasm that Matt has, I am getting pretty excited. Unfortunately, the resorts don't open for over another month, so now we have super awesome toys in our basement that we can't even use. Oh, well! Ski season will be here before we know it. We can't wait!

More Beer and Baseball

Apparently, brewery tours must be followed by baseball games because it seems that I am frequently combining the two into fun weekends. A couple of weeks ago (ok, it was almost a month ago...), we went to the grand opening event at the new site of Fort Collins Brewery.

Yay beer! (Yes, this beer was poured horribly. Luckily, they recognized it and gave me a free one. Yay free beer!)

Chillin' at the new brewery.

Drinking beer on the tour.

The site of the restaurant they're building. In a few months, we'll eat dinner here!

The brew house and bottling line.

Listening to fascinating information. We were on the first tour of the new building.

An FCB car. Cool, I guess.

Being in Fort Collins with all of the brewery options, we continued our day by checking out a few other good beers and cool places. After lunch at one of our favorite Fort Collins restaurants, Choice City Deli, we checked out the Equinox Brewery and revisited Odell.

Eating lunch (and drinking beer, obviously).

Empty tasters at Odell Brewing Co.

Dave and Katie, who live in Fort Collins, took us around the town and enjoyed the beer with us.

After our long day of drinking beer, we decided we better get some more food in us. Dave and Katie made a delicious steak dinner, and we continued the awesomeness.

Matt and Roxi.

Kanzi.

Me and Roxi. She likes me - really.

It was a good time, though I certainly had my fill of beer!

The next day, Melissa and I went to the Rockies game on free tickets provided by my work. Unfortunately, I had only been working at my new school for two days, so I didn't really know any of my coworkers who were there. But the Rockies had a little bit more of a chance that they would make the playoffs than they do now, so we enjoyed getting to cheer for them.

Yay Rockies!

Me and Mel at the TOP of the section - the highest row. But we had a good view, and the Rockies won!

So, in the end, it was a pretty good weekend of lots and lots of beer and a little baseball. Now that I'm back at work, I'm valuing those weekends more and more!

End of Summer Family Fun

Every summer, my mother's family has a big family reunion in Arkansas. It's the only time of the year that I get to see my grandparents who live out there. Unfortunately, my family has had some crazy goings-on this year that led to the cancellation of the reunion. My aunt spent her summer fighting a battle against cancer and my grandpa recently fell and broke his hip. While it wouldn't make sense to try and have a huge reunion, I still wanted to see my grandparents this year. So my mom and I made the 14 hour drive out to Marshall, Arkansas.

An Arkansas frog.

Without a lot of other family around, we had plenty of time to visit. In fact, with my grandpa recovering from his hip surgery in the nursing home, my mom and I had Granny all to ourselves.

Granny, cooking us breakfast.

Unfortunately, before I could enjoy myself too much, I had to finish up some homework. Our first day in Marshall was also the last day of my summer school session. That means it was the last day of my three classes. I worked all day long and felt completely amazing when I was done. Mom treated me to a coney and banana shake from Sonic as a reward. It was awesome.

Once I was able to start to forget about grad school a little, I turned my focus toward checking out all of the important Marshall, Arkansas sights. These include Fred's Dollar Store and Ferguson's Country Store and Restaurant. And that's pretty much it...

Shopping at Ferguson's while some of my family eats below.

Of course, the most important thing on our schedule was visiting with Granny and Grandpa. We went to the nursing home a couple of times each day to chat. Grandpa enjoyed being ornery for the nurses. I think he won't know what to do with himself when he gets to go home in a couple of weeks!

Outside the pretty nursing home.

Granny, entertaining us with the Chicken Dance.

Looking at pictures I loaded onto the digital frame. We wanted Grandpa to show off his beautiful family to the nurses.

Granny and Grandpa.

Me and my grandpa.

It was great to visit with family, and being in small town Arkansas was pretty relaxing, too. As soon as I returned to Colorado, I headed back to work. Now I'm back to being so busy that I wish I could spend a few more days with my grandparents in Arkansas.

Music Makes My Heart Happy

Whoa... I'm so behind on posting...

A really long time ago, Matt and I had an awesome weekend of music. We went to Mile High Music Festival to see two days of bands, including DAVE MATTHEWS BAND!!

Woohoo!

On Saturday, we made our way into the festival with lots and lots of other people.

Crowds.

Laying in the grass, listening to music.

The bands we were most looking forward to seeing on day one were Keane and Phoenix. They definitely did not disappoint.

Keane.

Matt's view of Phoenix.

My view of Phoenix. Being short sucks.

The big headliner for night one was Jack Johnson. While I find his music pretty groovy, it's a little too mellow for a giant concert. We decided he was not worth fighting the crowds, so we sat in the back for a few songs before we left the concert early.

Jack Johnson rocks... kinda??

I was extremely excited for day two because Dave was headlining! Hooray!

But first we had to check out the other bands.

Excited for music.

Matt Morris. He was pretty cool.

Train. They were fun.

In the end, we were able to see Keller Williams, Keane, Phoenix, Jack Johnson, Drive-By Truckers, Matt Morris, Punch Brothers, Train, My Morning Jacket, and Weezer (briefly).

Finally, it was time for the big event.

Yay!

Following the crowd of people making their way to the stage.

In case you couldn't tell from comments throughout this post, I'm a pretty big DMB fan and I have been since I was 16. While I wanted to go to the festival for all of the other cool bands, we pretty much bought the tickets because of Dave. So I was kind of excited as the moment drew nearer.

So excited!

Because DMB is one of my favorite bands ever, Matt really wanted to help me get close to the stage. We became very friendly with our neighbors as we all pushed our way in as close as possible.

Lots of people.

In the crowd of people much taller than me.

While we were standing around waiting for the band, a very exciting thing happened. A crazy DMB fan knelt down before his crazy DMB fan girlfriend in a crowd of crazy DMB fans to PROPOSE! MARRIAGE!

She said yes!

I was excited for them.

Anyway, after anxiously waiting not-so-patiently for over an hour (our feet were tired!), it was finally time!

Yay!

Look how close!

Having tons of fun!

Dave!

Smiling Carter on the big screens.

Me and Boyd. ME and BOYD in the same picture!

It was pretty amazing! They played Crush and Two Step, two of my favorite songs. And at the end, Dave came over to our side of the stage and he was less than 10 yards away from me!

It was pretty much the best concert experience ever. While we went mostly for Dave, we had tons of fun during the whole weekend. We may even go again next year!

I'll leave you with my favorite DMB lyric:

"Celebrate we will. 'Cause life is short, but sweet for certain."